Christmas Eve Dealmaster: Quiet your relatives with headphones!

Cancel their noise and bring peace back to your home so you can be merry again.

Merry Christmas Eve, Arsians! Too much family got you down? Aunts and uncles and cousins and in-laws invading your personal space, going through your fridge, screaming at each other at the top of their lungs? It's all part of the holiday experience!

But it doesn't have to get you down. We've got a great deal on some Audio Technica noise-canceling headphones, which, when combined with a pocket flask of vodka, will go a long way toward bringing peace and joy back to these relative-filled days. Just slip 'em onto your noggin and you're good to go! Optionally, get drunk while wearing them for maximum holiday cheer, though don't go too far with the sauce or else you'll suddenly be the crazy relative, all slurring and stumbling around with headphones on.

If that's not your style, we got other stuff, too, including a 256GB Crucial M4 SSD for about $0.75 per gigabyte, and $300 off a 50" Toshiba LCD HDTV. Happy Dealmaster Christmas!

The U2410 has faster response time and 8-bit color (only 6-bit for the U2412). There are a few other bells and whistles that make it more appealing to some folks, such as attached card reader or connection ports.

I just bought one of these over the weekend.

As a bonus, you can buy a Dell eGift Card for $349 and get a free $50 promotional eGift card. See details on Dell's site. Then, use both of those cards to buy the U2410 monitor for an effective cost of $349. You'll have to call their customer support to make the buy, because their online payment options don't let you plug in two gift cards. (I actually used their online support chat since their support call centers were closed when I called.)

It took a full day to process my eGift Card purchase, which might delay the delivery of the cards (even if you choose the same-day email option). I don't know how long the $399 sale price will last, so that's my only caution.

Also, a Dell U2412M is cheaper than the 2410, and unless you *need* the wide gamut capabilities of the 2410, you are better off with a 2412.

Agreed. Unless you are a professional that already knows what wide gamut means, you will be disappointed. While viewing normal applications such as games and movies, your monitor will emulate the sRGB color space, often getting it slightly wrong. So while you will get the nice viewing angles and a few other perks of IPS screens, color quality will suffer.

The Dell U2412M has excellent reviews, an e-IPS 6-bit screen, and super low response times suitable to gaming. It has a few compromises, but at the price point it's unbeatable

Also, a Dell U2412M is cheaper than the 2410, and unless you *need* the wide gamut capabilities of the 2410, you are better off with a 2412.

Agreed. Unless you are a professional that already knows what wide gamut means, you will be disappointed. While viewing normal applications such as games and movies, your monitor will emulate the sRGB color space, often getting it slightly wrong. So while you will get the nice viewing angles and a few other perks of IPS screens, color quality will suffer.

The Dell U2412M has excellent reviews, an e-IPS 6-bit screen, and super low response times suitable to gaming. It has a few compromises, but at the price point it's unbeatable

Wouldn't a 8-bit display be capable of displaying every color that a 6-bit display could show, plus more?

Also, a Dell U2412M is cheaper than the 2410, and unless you *need* the wide gamut capabilities of the 2410, you are better off with a 2412.

Agreed. Unless you are a professional that already knows what wide gamut means, you will be disappointed. While viewing normal applications such as games and movies, your monitor will emulate the sRGB color space, often getting it slightly wrong. So while you will get the nice viewing angles and a few other perks of IPS screens, color quality will suffer.

The Dell U2412M has excellent reviews, an e-IPS 6-bit screen, and super low response times suitable to gaming. It has a few compromises, but at the price point it's unbeatable

Wouldn't a 8-bit display be capable of displaying every color that a 6-bit display could show, plus more?

Correct. The specific technology the Dell panel uses is 6 bit A-FRC to achieve 16.7m colors. These colors are slightly different than 8 bit color matrices. Because 8 bit panels are not what content is designed for, they require more calibration. Often with 8 bit, wide gamut panels users complain pictures are super saturated and look plain wrong (green being orange), which can be corrected to an extent with profiles.

The new generation of 6 bit panels are quite capable and cheaper. Unless your a professional graphics designer or working with print, I recommend you stay away from wide gamut.

Other than the 5000 hour operations bug thats fixed by a firmware update, I don't see whats wrong with the Crucial M4. I've had the 256GB as a boot device for a year know and rather like it.

I've read that it has been fixed multiple times, which is why I will stay away from it. There's a nice big thread in the SA forums about it as well, with some folks going through the paces of rescuing their data from the drives.

As for my monitor comment, xryancat explained it in better detail. Think of it as buying a car - you *can* get a nice luxury sedan to drive between home and work, but is it necessary? Won't a normal sedan do the job just as well?

Did the deal change? I'm seeing $249.99 - $20 (discount by using V.me) - $50 (rebate )= $179.99 for the Audio Technica ATH-ANC9. Still a great deal, but it seems like the original pre-discount/rebate price was $220.

Other than the 5000 hour operations bug thats fixed by a firmware update, I don't see whats wrong with the Crucial M4. I've had the 256GB as a boot device for a year know and rather like it.

I've read that it has been fixed multiple times, which is why I will stay away from it. There's a nice big thread in the SA forums about it as well, with some folks going through the paces of rescuing their data from the drives.

As for my monitor comment, xryancat explained it in better detail. Think of it as buying a car - you *can* get a nice luxury sedan to drive between home and work, but is it necessary? Won't a normal sedan do the job just as well?

Honestly, I think you do yourself a disservice with that analogy. Comparing a normal sound card to some kind of USB mixer board might better represent what you're getting at; they'll both get the job done, but the latter is going to confuse/frustrate people and be wasted on 99% of the population. So with wide gamut display technology.

Honestly, I think you do yourself a disservice with that analogy. Comparing a normal sound card to some kind of USB mixer board might better represent what you're getting at; they'll both get the job done, but the latter is going to confuse/frustrate people and be wasted on 99% of the population. So with wide gamut display technology.

Lee Hutchinson / Lee is the Senior Reviews Editor at Ars and is responsible for the product news and reviews section. He also knows stuff about enterprise storage, security, and manned space flight. Lee is based in Houston, TX.